WCU captures first Dixon Trophy

WEST GOSHEN – Very few, if any, West Chester University athletes have ever mentioned the Dixon Trophy. And to be honest, not many are aware of its existence.

But WCU recently claimed the trophy, which is awarded annually to the top athletics program in the 16-member Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, and it’s a very big deal to West Chester Athletic Director Ed Matejkovic.

“It’s a tribute to our coaches and the kinds of kids they bring in,” he said. “They are competitive academically and athletically.”

The fact that West Chester beat out all 15 of its peers for the first time since the award made its debut 18 years ago is important. But Matejkovic is mindful that it’s also an indication of strength throughout the department.

“When I first came here, it was a very big deal when we had a team in the playoffs,” Matejkovic recalled. “Now – not that it’s old winning championships or doing well – but we do it a lot now. It’s not a freak thing for us to be in the playoffs. We kind of expect all of our teams to be in the playoffs, to be honest.

“Even though we offer a lot of sports, we don’t want to pick five sports and be the best in those five. We want to try to be as good as we can in every sport we sponsor.”

That brings up another factor: West Chester offers more sports than anybody in the PSAC and has one of the largest athletic departments among all NCAA Division II programs nationwide. Of the 23 sports sponsored by the PSAC, WCU offers 22. Add in women’s rugby and gymnastics, which are not PSAC sports, and the total number reaches 24.

“Our league commissioner, Steve (Murray), said he was happy to see a school like West Chester win it because we have so many sports,” Matejkovic pointed out.

“It’s kind of hard for us because we sponsor every sport the conference sponsors accept wrestling. So we have more sports we have to do well in. The good thing about it is that every sport had to contribute, so I’m elated.

“It’s pretty significant accomplishment for our program, especially based on the fact that we have to stretch our budget a lot thinner than other places. I think everybody wants to win it – we always did.”

The Dixon Trophy is named after F. Eugene Dixon, Jr., former chairman of the Board of Governors of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education.

“We’ve been close several times,” Matejkovic said.

“Lately, we tend to be in the mix at the end. But this was a special year because all of our teams were in the mix at the end. For example, this is the first time since I’ve been here (in 1995) that both our men’s and women’s tennis teams went to the playoffs in the same year.”

For the 2012-13 academic year, the league instituted a new format to calculate the Dixon Trophy standings based on an average score for each of the sports an institution sponsors. The point system tops out at 16 to each conference champion and assigns descending values for respective placement. The second- through last-place values vary depending on the number of teams that sponsor the sport.

West Chester narrowly edged Indiana (Pa.) by generating an average score of 10.77. IUP netted a 10.74 for its 19-sport program, making it the closest winning margin ever. Shippensburg (10.05), Slippery Rock (9.94) and Edinboro (9.85) rounded out the top five.

On their way to the top spot, the Golden Rams were propelled by four conference championships – men’s and women’s swimming, along with field hockey and women’s lacrosse. West Chester also had a runner-up finish in baseball, a pair of thirds in men’s soccer and men’s golf, and fourth-place points from softball, women’s soccer and men’s basketball.

“We did win four championships, which is significant,” Matejkovic acknowledged. “But all of our sports were averaged in, and it certainly speaks well for the across-the-board strength of our entire program.”

Gannon excelled with the top score on the women’s side with an 11.75 average, followed closely by West Chester (11.04). Slippery Rock posted the highest men’s average at 12.38, with IUP (10.94) and West Chester (10.45) rounding out the top-three. With WCU’s breakthrough, half of the PSAC’s schools have won the Dixon Trophy at least once since it was first awarded in 1996. Shippensburg owns the most titles with seven, while Bloomsburg and Lock Haven have won three apiece.